Geographical information such as satellite or aerial photographs, textual data (e.g., directions or descriptions), or any of a variety of types of maps (e.g., road maps, topographical maps, geologic maps, plats and nautical charts) has become increasingly available to information seekers through electronic information sources on the Internet, vehicle navigation systems, handheld devices (e.g., personal digital assistants (PDAs), a smartphone) or any of a variety of other sources. Typically, geographical information can be searched either for a specific address or a particular place or thing, such as a business, an intersection or a named location. In response to a search, information seekers can be presented with a map, photograph, directions between locations or any other information regarding the search location.
Collection of this geographic data is an enormous task. The sheer volume of geographical information is immense. Within the United States of America alone, there are millions of addresses, streets and other geographical objects. In addition, geographic data is continually changing. While certain geographic features such as mountains and deserts change slowly, others such as roads, addresses and zip codes are continuously changing due to road construction, building construction, changes in governmental regulations and the like. To ensure that users are provided with accurate information, geographical data should be continually collected and updated.
Typically, geographical data is collected by multiple vendors. Collection of geographic data involves dealings with numerous political entities, languages and regional customs. Consequently, it is unlikely that a single vendor will be able to provide geographic data covering the entire world. Instead, as an example, geographic data for Germany can be collected by a first vendor, while data for Japan can be collected by a separate vendor. Each vendor is likely to use their own proprietary format or scheme for storing the geographical data. In addition, the type of data collected as well as the relationships between geographic objects can vary from vendor to vendor and region to region. For example, certain countries include states and counties, while others include provinces and territories. This data can be aggregated and transformed to a common format for use by software applications (e.g., map and direction providers) and other users.